Once Upon A Time
by SpellCleaver
Summary: A collection of ten short oneshots/drabbles where the TOG girls are put into fairytale retellings, i.e. Cinderella, Rapunzel, Puss In Boots, Rumpelstiltskin.
1. Aelin - Cinderella

**This is just an idea I had and decided to run with: TOG girls set in twisted versions of fairytales. This one is for Aelin, and is a retelling of Cinderella. It's a little bit more than twisted, but I like it, to be honest.**

 **This one's longer than the rest will probably be - I was just planning on a small collection of less-than-1000-word oneshots/drabbles to write whenever writer's block hits.**

 **Whoever has any ideas for what fairytales Nesryn or Nehemia could be put in, _please_ mention it in the reviews or PM me, since I've got no ideas.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own TOG.**

* * *

 _Hand or Heart_

Her shoes hurt.

 _Great. Just great, Galathynius. You're hired to kill one of the most famous men in the country and all you can thing about is your shoes?_ She grumbled to herself. _Stay focused!_

She swallowed instead, taking a deep breath. The blades stuffed down her front restricted her breathing, but so long as she was subtle, it wouldn't be a problem. And if she needed to run... Well, she'd deal with that as it came.

The glass castle of Adarlan shone above her, and she curved her lips in a smile before they twisted into a sneer. Such luxury, such extravagance, such _arrogance_ -

She didn't like the King of Adarlan much.

But he wasn't her target. (Thank the gods - Wyrd help her if she had to get through the sort of security _he_ hired, especially for the sum of money her client was paying her.) Perrington was.

Duke Perrington of Morath, the King's right hand man. But he'd fallen out of favour recently, and so he likely wouldn't be trying to draw attention to himself at this party, which made it all the easier for her. All she'd have to do was corner him, trick him into a dance or two, lead him into another room, then slit his throat. Simple.

And, knowing the sort of person he was, it would be very, very easy for her to kill him.

She stepped through the large, ornate doors, and a butler stepped up to take her cloak. She thanked him with a pretty smile half hidden by the crimson mask on her face, and turned away.

The ballroom itself was robed in red and gold - the colours of the Adarlanian royal crest. Couples already twirled on the dance floor, and Aelin's stomach growled when she saw the buffet at the back of the room, but she kept a tight grip on herself. She could eat once she was holed up in her apartment again, the blood of her victim already washed away.

It took longer than she would've liked to locate him amidst the masses, but that was for the very reason she could pull this off: He was keeping a low profile. She finally spotted him after her fifth dance with nameless, faceless strangers - a tall but unassuming fellow in a fine grey tailcoat and a wig. She allowed herself a satisfied smile that her partner politely didn't comment on, only for it to freeze on her face when she beheld who was nearby.

Tall, broad shouldered, heavy yet graceful tread - she found it difficult to believe she hadn't noticed him earlier. _Especially_ in the emerald doublet and polished knee high boots he wore. His silver hair has been cut short since she last saw him; it gleamed under the light from the chandeliers. He had his coat collar and sleeves turned up - likely to hide the tattoo that climbed up the left side of his body. She'd never asked what the words meant.

 _Rowan fucking Whitethorn._

She felt like seething. How dare he. _How dare he_. This was _her_ job; Arobynn had assured her the client had asked for Celaena Sardothien specifically. How dare he come here and take her kill from her.

Because he certainly wasn't here to mingle with royalty, from what she knew about Whitethorn. He was here for a purpose. And there were rarely two assassinations going on at once in her line of work.

He looked up then, and spotted her. Though his face was half-covered by the mask of a flying hawk, she saw his lips tighten into a thin line.

Good. He should be angry. She gave him a smirk in return, then turned away as the music ended.

She was getting this job done, and she was collecting her payment. He would not get in the way.

Brooding made Aelin hungry. Abandoning her previous ultimatum to wait, she stalked off to the buffet and munched on a pastry as she considered the situation.

Rowan Whitethorn: the only assassin in Rifthold whose infamy rivalled hers. No one knew where he'd come from, just as no one knew where she'd come from; their names had just started circulating one day, until people had learned to fear them.

Whitethorn probably wasn't even his real name. Sardothien certainly wasn't hers.

This wasn't the first job they'd both been hired to do, and that was the first time they'd met face to face. Well, Aelin had arrived at the target's house, set up watch, Whitethorn had met with the man for "a discussion on economics" and once he'd left, she snuck in to find the man already dead.

It didn't take a fool to fit the pieces together once it began circulating amongst the criminal underworld a week later that Rowan Whitethorn had struck again. That wasn't even really what had pissed her off.

No, what had _really_ made her angry was that when Whitethorn had left, for all the world looking like an innocent acquaintance, he'd looked up at the roof. Somehow, he'd seen her hidden amongst the shadows. And he'd smiled.

Oh, she'd _hated_ him for that.

From then on, it'd been wreckage after wreckage. She'd last seen him a week ago in the markets in Rifthold - whilst she was buying the very shoes she wore now - where he'd started a brawl with her. She'd been hard pressed to escape the city guards coming to see what all the fuss was about.

So, needless to say, she was not thrilled about seeing him here. After she got paid, she might hunt her client down and rip out his throat for the insult.

When she looked up, Perrington was dancing with someone. She resolved to retreat into an alcove and wait.

She was in the alcove for maybe a few minutes before a large shadow fell across the opening. Her hand twitched, itching to reach for her knives, but she forced herself to relax. No one knew what Celaena Sardothien looked like. No one - except Rowan rutting Whitethorn - would be looking to eliminate her here and now.

She instantly realised she'd misjudged the situation when the very person she'd been cursing appeared in the entrance to the alcove - blocking her only exit. "Sardothien," Whitethorn said formally, like this was a perfectly normal, perfectly _cordial_ , meeting - like she wasn't planning on _ripping out his rutting throat_. "I didn't expect to see you here."

She already had a dagger in each hand, but he was faster, and their positions in the alcove gave him an advantage as he grabbed her wrists. After a moment of struggle, she found herself trapped. Her dagger was angled to slice open his wrist - but his was angled to pierce her chest.

A hand or a heart? Aelin didn't presume to think she had the advantage here.

She took a breath, the movement making the tip of the dagger catch in the fabric covering her chest, and prepared herself to die. Prepared herself to make as much damage as she could whilst she did.

But then he brought his mouth close to her ear and said in a whisper so faint she thought it was a stray breeze: "I need your help."

Only the blade at her breast kept her in place - otherwise, she'd have jerked away in shock. "What?" She got out in an equally quiet voice.

Seemingly satisfied she wouldn't try to stab him - not until he'd explained his bizarre statement, anyway - she let go, and she whirled to face him head on. There was no jesting in his stern face. "I said, I need your help."

"With _what_?" She fingered the handle of her dagger, eliciting a cautious glance from him.

"This job, of course."

She couldn't help it: she laughed. "Is that so, _Whitethorn_?" She sneered. "Is that even your real name?"

"Of course," he said simply. "Not all of us have to hide behind a false identity, _Galathynius_."

She flushed an angry red. "How d-" Whether she was about to say _how dare you?_ or _how do you know?_ was uncertain, but he cut her off either way.

"My point is, I need your help, _Celaena_ , so why don't you shut your mouth for once and listen?" She gaped at his rudeness, but he barrelled on. "I need you to create a diversion."

"A diversion?"

"Faint, or something. This blithering idiots are so sexist the moment a woman faints or screams bloody murder they'll be stumbling over themselves to prove that there's nothing wrong. I just need to to distract the medic Perrington has with him long enough for him to die of the poison I spiked his wine with."

 _The medic_. Yes, she could see how he could be a problem - Perrington's personal healer had been keeping a close eye on him all night, looking for signs of injury or illness. That might complicate Whitethorn's plan to poison him.

"What's in it for me?"

Whitethorn smirked then, and she remembered how much she hated him. "Half of the payment we've both been offered - the other half going to me, of course. You can work out the percentage your master gets yourself," a pause then he said, slightly gleefully, "and if you don't, I'll go straight to the King of Adarlan and tell him that Celaena Sardothien, also known as Aelin Galathynius, is in his midst."

She narrowed her eyes at the threat. "If you do that, I'll let slip that Rowan Whitethorn is here."

"You might, but who do you think they'll be more interested in? A petty assassin, or the daughter of the two most powerful magic wielders this continent has ever seen?" He tapped his fingernail against his dagger. "Oh, I think they'll be _very_ interested in you."

Her pride barked at her to kill him, to refuse, to get the job done, but... It was too risky. If the King got the faintest hint she was here, living in his city-

"Fine," she ground out between her teeth. "I'll do it."

His grin was like the unsheathing of a dagger. "Good."

It went all right at first. She screamed at blood she didn't really see, and when it was clear she was "too hysterical to communicate" there were cries of "fetch the medic, fetch the medic!" She pretended to faint just before he got there, and suppressed a smile when she saw Perrington collapse with little fuss on the other side of the room.

It got awkward when, in his preliminary examination of her, the medic found the weapons she'd hidden under her dress. "Hey!"

She'd bolted.

In fact, she'd been in such a rush to get out of there that she nearly tripped and fell on the stairs. Her stupid shoe came off, and for a moment she debated putting it back on (those shoes were expensive after all) but it was so hard to run in, and it hurt her foot, so she just left it there. It could be potential evidence for the guards to track her down, but... She'd deal with that if it happened.

She kept running.

She didn't stop until she reached her apartment, made sure all the windows and doors were locked, then passed out on the bed.

She woke from a fitful sleep to find the window swinging open (she'd locked it, gods damn it!) and her missing shoe sitting innocuously on her nightstand.

Crammed inside the shoe was exactly half (she counted) of all the gold the client had promised her. She knew where the other half was - a note had been left. Signed by Rowan Whitethorn himself.

 _Figured you'd be missing this._

 _And I don't suppose you'd be interested in working together in the future?_


	2. Kaltain - Rumpelstiltskin

**Thanks to wavingthroughawindow and dauntlesslily for reviewing!**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thank you! :) I never considered the fairy tale The Snow Queen - I've got an idea whose story I might write for that, now. Thanks!**

 **dauntlesslily: Thanks for reviewing! :)**

 **This is based off of** **Rumpelstiltskin** **, and is for Kaltain. This is my favourite idea I have, if I'm being honest; it was so much fun to write.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Throne of Glass; it belongs to SJM.**

* * *

 _Ashes and Shadows_

Let it be known that Kaltain Rompier was ambitious. It was a trait inherited, no doubt, from her father - the very man who'd gotten her into this mess.

But when the King of Adarlan had first locked her in this room with three candles, she'd decided that all those morality tales warning children of the vice that ambition was were told for a reason.

If her Lord father hadn't gotten quite as drunk as he had the night the King of Adarlan was visiting them, if he'd had less ambition than he did, he might not have blurted and boasted to the entire population of the tavern that his seventeen year old daughter possessed shadowfire - a gift that was either coveted in the land of Adarlan, or despised.

But the King hadn't despised her - at least, he hadn't killed her, so she assumed he didn't. Instead, the next morning guards had been sent to her room to escort her down to where the King sat on her father's throne, and she'd been told that she would be instantly engaged to his son Dorian (to breed the magic potential into the bloodline, was what he didn't say) _if_ it was proved to be true.

(He didn't need to mention that mention that she and her father would be executed for fraud if it wasn't.)

She would return to the glass castle with him, and be given lavish quarters and servants to wait on her hand and foot. But the door would be locked until she could light three candles with the dark flame.

Now, she stared dully at the wax sticks placed in front of her. She could light them. She _could_. But that was it.

The truth? _She didn't have shadowfire_. She had ordinary fire powers. Flashy, impressive, strong - but not shadowy.

Se groaned into her hands, her black dress spilling onto the floor around her like oil. She was going to die.

"I don't suppose," a voice said above her, "you need any help with that?"

Heart thudding, she turned to see a man's had entered through the locked door. He wore a fine cloak and a shirt worthy of a prince, and she got a sinking feeling in her stomach when she recognised him. "Duke Perrington?"

"Indeed I am," he nodded, and his leering smile made her uncomfortable. "And I asked, do you need any help with that?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Why would you want to help me?" In her momentary anger, one of the candles sparked with flame, then flickered out.

He smirked. "So you can control fire, but not shadowfire?" Her throat knotted, she could only nod. There didn't seem any point in lying - lying was what had gotten her into this mess. He seemed to deliberate for a moment, then said: "I have something that might help your fire turn to shadowfire, but I'll need something from you in return."

"What is it?" She asked cautiously.

He reached into the pocket of his trousers, and pulled out a polished black ring. "I'll give you this obsidian ring if you give me yours."

She glanced down at her right hand. Her family seal ring glittered there, the gold metal bright and shining. It had belonged to her mother before she died, and it was all she had left of her, but. . .

This was her life.

She nodded. "Agreed." She slid the seal ring off her finger, and tried to ignore the pang of heartache that came with it. She handed it over, and slipped the obsidian one on with shaking hands. She didn't dare to ask how it would help - she just had to trust it would.

And sure enough, when the King came to check on her the next morning, she waved her hand and the three candles were set alight with a shadowy flame that looked and felt wrong. But the King was satisfied, and dumped five more candles on her. "Light all of these for me tomorrow morning, and then we'll see about your engagement."

She tried to do it once the terrifying man had left. But every time she tried, the original three candles burned black, whilst the rest burned yellow.

Perrington came in just at the point where she tried again, and she heard him click his tongue. "Oh no, that won't work. The ring can only cover a set amount of candles, you see. It won't stretch to any more."

She turned to him in desperation. "Can _you_ help me then?"

He smiled that eerie smile at her again, and said, "Well, I have an obsidian collar that might cover enough candles for you. But I'll need your necklace in return."

Kaltain had no sentimental attachment to her necklace. She almost broke it when she clawed it off in her haste to get her salvation.

Sure enough, the collar worked as well, and the King of Adarlan grudgingly admitted to being impressed. "Here." He threw down ten more. "This is your final test - if you can light all twenty, then you can marry my son."

She couldn't light all twenty, but she waited for Perrington to visit and help her again. Like he anticipated this, he waited until dawn was about to grace the sky to come, until her heart was in her throat and she wondered if he was coming at all.

When he did, so much tension bled out of her body it was an effort to stay upright. "I need-"

"I'm afraid there's only one way to give you enough power to light all twenty," he said solemnly. "I have something called a 'Wyrdkey' here that I would need to sew into to your forearm in order for it to work. I ask nothing in return - I've grown fond of you, beautiful Kaltain. And I'm sure this will work." He drew out a needle and thread. The utensil gleamed ominously in the dim light. "I just need your arm."

It was a good thing she wore a long sleeve gown, she acknowledged when the King came through for her final test. She managed to light all twenty effortlessly, though the stitches split and blood seeped into the fabric of her black dress.

She was married to Dorian within the week. She was told by a regretful Perrington that he couldn't remove the Wyrdkey, so she lied to the servants and said that it was an old wound that acted up occasionally. No one thought ill of it when she wore a bandage on her left arm at her wedding ceremony.

But as the weeks passed, she felt herself begin to be emptying out - no, _scooped_ out, like a mussel shell. And she could feel _something_ coming in to fill that space.

Moments came where the Wyrdkey burned hot for a moment, then went back to being a cold lump of rock. Moments came where she made a move she hadn't meant to, or said something against her will. Moments came where she felt something slumbering inside her open one, massive eye.

It was awake. And it was strong.

"What's happening to me!?" She accosted Perrington at the first opportunity. "It's like I'm being possessed!"

He'd looked at her with an expert mask, but she didn't miss the triumph - and ownership - in his gaze as he looked at her. "It's all in your head, sweet Kaltain, I assure you."

"Liar!" She screamed it so loud that the servants - who'd been quietly respecting their masters' argument - briefly looked over in shock. "You know what's happening, and you know it's nothing good!" The Wyrdkey flared hot then, so hot it hurt, and she staggered back, clutching her arm.

Perrington had smiled then. It was that smile she hated so much. "On the contrary, naïve Kaltain," he'd murmured. "It's a very good thing for me indeed when the demon takes hold."

" _Demon?_ " She shrieked.

"I'll make a deal with you," he said conversationally. "If you can guess my name, the demon will be forced to leave your body. If not, then you become its - and my - slave."

"Your _name_?" She scoffed. "Perrington?"

"No," he said cheerfully. "My real name, I meant. Guess it, and I swear I'll free you from your servitude."

"Alright," she said, trying to regulate her breathing. She knew she wouldn't get a better deal. "Alright."

But the weeks passed, and she couldn't guess it. She spewed every name that came to mind, but none of them were right. And the creeping cold slowly consumed every limb, every muscle, until she couldn't even blink unless the demon willed it. The demon still allowed her to visit Perrington, and it gave her control then, if only because it found it amusing to see her beg, scream, plead for mercy. Then it took over again.

Eventually, she had no more guesses to give. She would simply sit with Perrington without speaking, and the demon would revel in it.

Until one day, the demon was using her body, her mouth, to communicate with another demon possessing the Prince's cousin Roland. And it had mentioned the title, "His Dark Majesty, Erawan."

The demon hadn't even realised she was listening. It had thought she was curled up in the corner of her own head in despair, refusing to pay attention to the world around her.

Then next day, when the demon gave her control for those five minutes, she said quietly, "Erawan."

He'd stiffened immediately. Anger - she was sure it was anger that flashed across his face. "What?"

The demon tried to wrestle back control, but she held fast. "Your name is Erawan." She said. "I am free."

Yes - _yes_ , she was free. She felt the demon be ripped, screaming, from her body, heard Perrington's - Erawan's - cry of outrage, and then she was on the floor with a bleeding lip from where he'd backhanded her across the face. He kicked her in the ribs, and she went flying. "You-"

" _How dare you_ ," she seethed, pushing herself up onto her elbows. "I am a Princess of Adarlan." She took vicious satisfaction in the terror that engulfed is face as he beheld the shadowfire - his, once, but hers now - flicker at her fingertips. " _You do not control me._ "

She hauled herself to her feet and raised her hands.

He didn't even have time to scream before she scorched him to ashes and shadows.


	3. Nehemia - The Snow Queen

**Thanks to rowaelinfeyrhys, Stars-Guard, dauntlesslily, mysecretescape and wavingthroughawindow for reviewing!**

 **rowaelinfeyrhys: Thank you! I won't be doing a Beauty and the Beast one, sorry, since I can't think of a TOG character it might fit :/**

 **Stars-Guard: Thank you so much! Elide will be Rapunzel, because I can't think of another fairy tale she might fit in, but it'll be about as true to the fairy tale as Chapter 1 was to Cinderella.**

 **dauntlesslily: Thank you! :)**

 **mysecretescape: Thanks!**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thank you so much! I agree; I love Kaltain, and she's so under appreciated. And I used your suggestion in this chapter, so it definitely helped a lot! :D**

 **Shoutout to wavingthroughawindow for this chapter, because I couldn't for the life of me think of a fairy tale to fit Nehemia until she suggested this one. :)**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Throne of Glass.**

* * *

 _Broken Mirrors_

Nehemia had known for a good while by now that her dearest friend, Celaena, was a touch reckless. Bitter. In the frank, crass, if not downright _rude_ terms the woman used herself, a bitch.

Nehemia understood why. She understood that Celaena had lost her parents at a young age and been shoved into foster care pretty much instantaneously, and been exposed to a whole slew of questionably foster parents, including but not limited to men like Arobynn Hamel, Rourke Farran and Ioan Jayne, all of whom Nehemia now knew were in prison.

(Personally, she didn't see how that was a decent excuse, since Nehemia herself wasn't exactly the most privileged or protected girl in the orphanage and she still understood that other people could hurt just as much as she could. But everyone dealt with their emotions in different ways, she supposed.)

Celaena had made friends with Nehemia when they turned out to be the only two teenage girls in the orphanage they'd been thrown in - who the hell thought it was a good idea to raise kids in a building that had literally once been a _glass castle_ , the latter didn't know, but it seemed too much like tempting fate for her - and since then, they'd been friends. Nehemia had no idea what had prompted her friend to treat her differently than she treated everyone else she interacted with, but they'd been friends from then on, and the staff had taken to pairing them together at every opportunity because, "Nehemia can help calm Celaena down."

As was the case of every child in the orphanage - except Dorian Havilliard, but his dad was an arsehole so no one trusted him to take care of the sweet child - it had been widely believed that Celaena had no living family. So no one was more surprised than Nehemia when a scarily beautiful woman rolled up outside in a fancy car of a make none of them had even heard of before and claimed to be Celaena's aunt.

Maeve Regina was apparently the multimillionaire owner of six international companies, and had been the twin sister - the "Evil Twin", as she was dubbed by Celaena later - of Celaena's grandfather, Orlon. And since her brother's death, she'd been estranged from her niece and nephew, but when she heard of their untimely deaths over ten years after they occurred, she'd devoted herself to tirelessly finding her lost niece and bringing her home.

That was what she said, anyway.

She'd visited them, and after the woman had sufficiently proved that she _was_ in fact related to the girl, Celaena had been offered the chance to spend the day with her. Nehemia had watched her friend leave through the window of one of the upper floors, and had the peculiar feeling that something was wrong.

Nehemia was also there when Celaena came back, and knew that her feeling had been right.

Her friend stepped through the door first, quickly followed by her aunt. Celaena's tan face was uncharacteristically pale, and her lips were pressed tightly together in a futile effort to stop them from shaking. Maeve was smirking.

"It's been so nice to get to know you, dear," she cooed, patting Celaena on the head like she was a small child. "And as a present, I found these old photos of your parents while I was trying to find you. This mirror was a wedding present from your grandfather to your mother." She then sauntered away, leaving Celaena behind her with shoulders that sagged in obvious relief.

Nehemia managed to pull Celaena into a side room before any of the staff came along. "Are you okay?"

Her friend stared at her blankly for a moment, then shook her head. "She's- She's horrible. An absolute bitch. She's manipulative, and selfish, and cruel, and she kept purposely embarrassing me and getting me to say things and making backhanded insults like nothing I ever did was good enough-" She broke off with a sob. Nehemia was shocked; she hadn't seen her friend cry in _years_.

"Oh, Celaena," she sighed. "What was that she gave you at the end?"

Her friend brought out a circular mirror the size of her palm. Its rim was made of brass, and was studded with what looked like precious stones, though Nehemia had no idea whether they were real or not.

"It was my mother's, apparently," Celaena said quietly. "And she gave me a photo as well." She held out a scrap of film that was faintly blurry, but showed the profiles of a well-built man with dark hair, and a woman who looked like an older version of Celaena herself, with honey-blonde hair and those distinctive eyes.

Nehemia, looking at the way Celaena clutched the relics like they were lifelines in a chaotic world, murmured, "She must be very cruel."

"She is." Celaena clenched her fists even tighter; they could hear the photograph crinkling. "She's manipulating me into wanting to stay with her, so I can get more relics and memories of them, but she's _horrible_. Why would I put up with her bullshit for a few old photographs?"

Nehemia hadn't wanted to say it herself, so she was glad her friend had already known. "You wouldn't," she said quietly. "That's what she doesn't understand."

Celaena's eyes flashed. "You're right," she said, her voice suddenly savage. "I wouldn't. I _won't_."

In a sudden, graceless motion, the girl yanked her right hand back and threw the mirror against the wall.

" _Celaena!_ "

Nehemia had only just grabbed the back of her friend's t-shirt and shoved her out the way when the mirror shattered into a thousand pieces, and they came bombarding back at them. A shard that had been on the trajectory to embed itself in the blonde's chest scraped across her shoulder and blood stained her blue sleeve.

"Are you okay!?"

Celaena was breathing heavily, but shirked Nehemia's worried hand off her shoulder. She idly touched the blood seeping from her wound, but seemed to feel no pain. "I'm fine," she said raggedly. "I'm fine."

Nehemia put her hand on her friend's back and steered her out of the room. "Let's get this cleaned up, and then you can make a judgement."

She washed the cut and put a plaster on it, and no more was said on the matter.

The next day, when Maeve came back, Celaena stalked right up to her and said in no uncertain terms that she wanted nothing to do with her.

Nehemia didn't hear much of what was said - although Celaena was screaming, her aunt certainly wasn't - but she did see it the moment Maeve, in a fit of rage that seemed uncharacteristic of the woman, snatched the crumpled photo of Celaena's parents out of the girls hands and ripped it to shreds. She stalked out.

Celaena's gasp of outrage was drowned out by the door slamming behind her.

It was almost heartbreaking, seeing Celaena fall to her knees with a small cry and begin scrabbling for the scraps. She desperately pressed two pieces together as if to see if they fit, but soon enough she'd dropped them again and was quietly sobbing into the carpet.

After a few moments, she got up and, carefully gathering all the pieces of the photo, carried the them to their shared room. One of the staff - a sweet woman named Philippa - made to follow, but Nehemia heard a thump and a shout from inside and the woman rushed out, looking harried.

Nehemia tried herself next. "Celaena?" She hated how soft her voice had gone.

"I'm fine," her friend insisted. "I'm _fine_."

"Celaena." Nehemia knelt down next to her, and peered at the loosely arranged scraps on the floor. "Do you want to help?"

"Yes," her friend replied, almost too quiet to pick up.

Nehemia ran her eye over the pieces, then glanced back at Celaena. Going off the fact that Celaena's mother looked almost identical to her, then. . . She picked up the pieces and placed them against each other until she had some semblance of a face. Celaena's murmured thanks told her that her friend thought it looked right as well.

She turned her eyes onto the rest of the pieces. Using the mother's section as a base, she found the pieces that fit around it, and then the pieces that fit around them, and so on until she'd reached the corner pieces Celaena had already separated from the rest of the scraps.

"There we go," Nehemia said, to herself as much as to her friend. "Now we just need some tape."

"Thank you, Nehemia," Celaena said softly, once they'd taped the photo back together. It was still hardly recognisable as a photo, but you could make out the subjects' faces if you knew where to look, and that was apparently good enough for Celaena.

Nehemia passed a hand in front of her face. "No problem."


	4. Elide - Rapunzel

**Thanks to wavingthroughawindow, dauntlesslily and Brandofloki for reviewing!**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thank you! I love their friendship as well. And I couldn't bear to give it a sad ending after what happened in canon. I don't really want to write Mulan as Nesryn, because I'm going for the "fairy tales" as in the story book kind, rather than the Disney movies... I don't know if I'm explaining it very well, but I ultimately decided not to use Mulan.**

 **dauntlesslily: I miss it too! It was the main thing that led to me writing that oneshot. And Lysandra is coming soon, but not in this chapter because I need to study her fairy tale a bit, since I'm not as familiar with it as I am with the others.**

 **Brandofloki: That's something that might be possible, but I've already decided on which one I'm doing for Lysandra. Thanks for the suggestion, though!**

 **This chapter is short, I know, but there wasn't much to write. It's about Elide as Rapunzel.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own TOG.**

* * *

 _Deep Woods_

The sudden weight loss made her head fling forward and nearly collide with the wall. Elide huffed, eyeing the dark trellises she'd just severed from her scalp. Apparently, her hair was extremely heavy.

She sighed and shook her head. The long, thick plait she'd braided her hair into was now lying limp on the floor, and she quickly found a hairband (or several) to tie the top of it tightly, so she now had a long rope of jet black hair ready for her to climb down.

In theory, at least.

She sighed again. It was about time that got out of this place. She'd been dreaming of escape ever since her old nursemaid, Finnula, had told her that Vernon's lies _were_ , in fact, lies; there was a world outside the tower that one could live, survive and thrive in, and that he was keeping her locked up for his own selfish gain.

From there she'd started her long history of escape attempts that aggravated her uncle more than they helped her, until he'd forced her to wear a chain round her ankles for two years in the vain hope that it would help.

It didn't, but she now bore the scars there as further incentive to run.

Lorcan had promised to help her, once, but he'd also disappeared a few weeks ago and she didn't really have time for people who wouldn't deliver on their promises. The time to escape was now.

It was funny, she thought now, that in all her escape attempts - digging through the carpet and ivy and wallpaper to try and find a hidden door he _must_ have used to get her up here as a baby, using nails and picks and sometimes just her bare hands to attempt to scale the wall, even going so far as to outright _jump_ , leading to a broken ankle and rants from Finnula and Vernon - she'd never considered _using her hair as a ladder._

Her hair had been an irritant of hers for a long, long time (no pun intended). It gave her neck aches and back aches, and yanked on her scalp painfully every time someone (including herself) stood on it - which, considering its length, was often. She'd complained time after time to an irate uncle that maybe he could _just use a ladder to get up here_ instead of _having me play tug of war with gravity every time you fancy a visit_ , but he was adamant about it.

"And what would you do with that ladder when I'm away, dearest niece?" he'd hummed in more recent years, clearly unimpressed with both her "childish whining" and "idiotic attempts at suicide".

Now, after everything, despite all the years of defying her uncle via her continued attempts, it felt curiously like betrayal to have actually sheared through the midnight locks with the scissors from her sewing basket.

Her hair was long. More importantly, it was long enough. She could tie it to one of the posts on the bed and trust it to hold her weight as she shimmied out the window and climbed down.

She tied the knot. Twice, to be sure. She chucked the other end of the braid out the window. She perched on the windowsill herself.

Taking a deep breath, she looked down.

The grassy slope the tower was built on looked deceptively soft from up here, but her still-healing ankle twinged with both real and imagined pain as she studied the green expanse. She remembered how much it had hurt to collide with it at high speed, and was beyond relieved to see that her black (literal) lifeline was even longer than the tower, pooling slightly in the grass like a depthless shadow.

She clutched the plait in her left hand - nervous sweat was already starting to cling to her palms, and she wiped her free one on her skirt - then ran her right hand over the hair left on the back of her head, cut unevenly short. It solidified her resolve; she'd already made the decision. She'd already acted on it.

All that remained to do was keep going.

She leaned forward; the weight shift meant she lost her balance on the windowsill; she hurtled downwards.

A stinging in her shoulder alerted Elide to the scrape she'd acquired. She gritted her teeth, ignoring the pain as she gripped the plait with her other hand and began to descend hand over foot down the wall.

When she hit the bottom, it was the most freeing feeling she'd ever experienced.

The grass was somehow both soft and wiry against her feet, and when she held her arms out and tried to step away from the wall, she didn't anticipate the slope of the ground and stumbled onto her face.

Once the world stopped spinning, she opened her eyes to nothing but blue, blue sky, and the tips of trees. She reached out with her hands and feet, revelling in the feeling of damp grass against her skin, and tried to regain her balance.

Free.

She was free!

"Ow!" Cradling her injured hand to her chest, she glared at the offending plant - a tall, spiky one that grew near the base of the tower. Her hand stung.

A twig snapped behind her, and she jumped out of her skin. "Elide?"

The voice was masculine, and for a moment her heart inflated to block her airways. Not Vernon not Vernon please don't be Vernon please-

She turned, and saw Lorcan come out of the trees, eyeing her like she was an animal that might be easily startled. She relaxed instantly. "You got out yourself?"

He'd promised to get her out once, when he'd come across her on one of his hunting trips into the deep woods. But, as it turned out, she hadn't needed him. "Yes," she said simply. "I did."

His dark eyes narrowed as they looked from her, to the tower, then back again. They seemed to zero in on her now close cropped hair. "Well," he asked, "would you like me to direct you to civilisation? I'm not sure you'll make it through the woods on your own, judging by your," he eyed her shoes - or lack thereof, "current state of dress."

Elide smiled happily at him, and pushed herself to her feet. She took a step forward, then. . . forgot about the slope again and went tumbling. Again.

She landed a few metres from where he stood, and tried her best to retain a few scraps of dignity as she dusted herself off and stood up again. "Yes," she huffed. "I think that would be best."


	5. Sorscha - Little Match Girl

**I know I've been churning these out really quickly, but it's because they're easy to write, and I've sort of hit a writer's block with the next chapter of Heart to Hearts. I promise I'll get back to writing that soon (ish) but until then these'll be coming out like wildfire.**

 **Thanks to TomThomas101, rowaelinfeyrhys, and wavingthroughawindow for reviewing!**

 **TomThomas101: Thank you!**

 **rowaelinfeyrhys: Thank you so much! I agree with you, it's one of the reasons I love her so much. She never gives up. :) Thanks again for reviewing!**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thank you! Elide is definitely one of my two favourite characters ever as well, so I'm glad I kept her in character! And I'd love to write a sequel, but I genuinely have no idea what I could write for one :/ And I love Disney as well (much to the annoyance of my sister, since I've been watching them much more often recently) and the fact that they do blur together is kind of in my reasoning for not writing Nesryn as Mulan, so I can distinguish between them myself. Thanks for your wonderful review! :)**

 **I took a lot of liberties with this, but this one is Sorscha in the Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Anderson. . . I'm sorry.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Throne of Glass; it's SJM's.**

* * *

 _Blood and Wounds_

Sorscha had been a battlefield healer since she could remember - first her mother's assistant, before taking up the mantle when she'd died - so she wasn't unaccustomed to the heat and panic and abject _terror_ of the moment. The knowledge that this person might die, whatever she did, grated on her reasoning and her peace of mind until even on her days off she would jerk awake, panicked, and try to tell herself that she was not needed right at that moment.

That she had some semblance of peace.

But she _was_ unaccustomed to feeling these sorts of emotions emanate from her patient as she desperately worked in a tent by the dim light of a swinging lamp in order to heal them.

Sorscha's mother had repeatedly told her that she had exceptional healing magic, more powerful than anyone in their family who had come before. But she also had some latent. . . _empathetic_. . . abilities that stemmed from some long lost ancestor on her father's mother's side that meant this job was, in short, a living hell for her.

The ability to feel the emotions - and their potency - of the people around her didn't seem like such a bad gift at a first glance. The ability had come in mildly useful as a child - how to tell when her friend was lying, how to calm her anxious parents' distress, how to know when to push those in authority and when not to - but when she'd tagged along to help heal those on the battlefield, it had become a curse.

Hearing not just echoes, but _shouts_ of pain and suffering and _pleaseidon'twanttodieIDON'TWANTTODIE_ had wore on her from a young age, and she'd adopted the habit of being kind to everyone because she'd since how much scraps of kindness could help the dying, and who knew who would die and who would live? Certainly not Sorscha.

But this man. . . This man in front of her, who she knew there was no way of stopping die of a fatal stab wound to the gut, felt nothing of the fear she was accustomed to. Instead, for the first time ever, she not only gained a feeling of warm comfort from him, but an image too: A sturdy yellow cottage built beside a small river, the sides of a valley sloping in either direction, and the red door open to show an elderly, straight-backed, silver-haired woman smiling at him with an infant cradled on her hip.

The image disappeared when he passed away, his hand going limp in hers. She clutched it for a moment, hoping - no, _begging_ \- for the vision to come back. The world was suddenly very, very cold.

She left the tent quickly, the night's temperature having dropped to well below freezing, and made her way into the next tent. She'd sustained her own injury in the melee, a wound to the thigh, and it throbbed as she limped through the night. She'd have to check it the moment she had the time.

In the next tent, she saw that the lanterns were burning low. She bit her lip, but ducked inside anyway, even though she could _feel_ the injured woman's life force ebbing away. After a cursory glance, she'd diagnosed the source of the bleeding: not only had she gained multiple stab wounds to her torso, but the left side of her temple had taken a sharp collision as well, with blood matting her blonde hair to her scalp.

Sorscha frowned, then dipped her cloth into the small pail of water she carried and tried to wash away the blood at her head. The stabs weren't fatal - they hadn't hit any major organs at least; the main danger here was blood loss - but that head wound seemed to have done more damage than she could fix. The blood was dried, suggesting it had been left untreated for long enough for infection to set in.

There was nothing she could do. Sorscha knew it, knew it wasn't practical, knew she should save every last scrap of her magic to heal those that could be saved, but. . . She had to try.

She couldn't live with herself knowing she hadn't tried.

She flexed her hand over the woman's scalp, and painstakingly tried to regrow some of the skin cells there- but no, there was a fracture in her skull, and she'd need to heal that first, and then-

It happened again. That feeling of warm contentment, even as the dying woman took her last, shuddering breath, and Sorscha saw a fire - no, a hearth, flames flickering warmly in it - and in front of it, a worn armchair with its back facing the woman. At this angle, all Sorscha could see of the occupant was a single hand resting on the arm of the chair. A gold ring glinted dully on the fourth finger.

Then the darkness of the tent returned, and the woman was dead.

Shaken, Sorscha scrambled to pick up her pail of water, and her pack, then got out of there. The pain in her thigh was steadily becoming worse, and she realised belatedly that it was still bleeding. That wasn't right; the wound should have clotted by now.

She shook her head. Now was not the time; people needed her.

The third tent, she stifled a cry. It was a small boy lying there, his shirt tied round his front in a makeshift bandage for an ugly cut from his nape to his navel. She didn't want to begin to fathom why he'd been on the field - or if he'd been in the battle at all - and instead leapt into saving him.

She held out hope for a long time - probably an over-optimistic length of time, but never let it be known that Sorscha gave up - that he would survive.

He didn't.

Instead, she was forced to watch yet another person die that evening, her hand supporting his head, and even as the light left his pale eyes, she saw what he saw.

A mother's indistinct face, laughing and shaking her head as sunlight caught her straw-coloured hair, viewed from below, like the viewpoint of a very young child.

She rarely cried for the people she treated; she didn't have enough tears to give. But she wanted to cry for him.

She staggered out of the tent to see the new dawn staining the horizon red. Her leg was still bleeding, but she paid it no heed until another healer - Yrene - called out, "Sorscha? Your leg's still bleeding."

She nodded. "I know."

"Sorscha. . ." Yrene abandoned whatever course she'd been on, and knelt down to study the wound. "It's infected, and it's hit a vein." Her honey-coloured eyes moved up to meet Sorscha's disbelieving ones. She said with a certainty that, strangely, didn't frighten Sorscha, "You'll die before the hour is out."

Sorscha looked at her, wordless and agape. But no argument. She had no buts or ifs or maybes left to give. Instead, she simply collapsed to her knees.

Yrene tried her best, full of the same optimism Sorscha had sported not hours ago: carrying her to the nearest empty tent, cleaning the wound, binding it, desperately trying to regrow the cells, but. . . It had been too long. She had been too selfless, too giving, too dismissive to survive.

Sorscha was going to die.

And she did, before the sun had even finished rising, the daylight's rays setting her eyes and hair ablaze like a funeral pyre as she passed away.

And amidst the flood of warmth and compassion, she saw a single image:

Her mother, hair tied back with a strip of brown cloth as she worked, her expression focused but calm. Hopeful, in a way Sorscha had rarely seen.

Hours later, the rest of the camp awoke without her.


	6. Lysandra - Puss In Boots

**Thanks to franklyherondale, Apollo is boss, rowaelinfeyrhys and wavingthroughawindow for reviewing!**

 **franklyherondale: Thanks for all of your reviews! I'm glad I got Sorscha's character right - I don't currently have access to HOF so I wasn't able to Reread the sections with her in it to check. Thank you for such kind words!**

 **Apollo is boss: Sorry about that! Yeah, it took a very different turn to what I had originally intended, but it still loosely sticks to the storyline. And it probably says a lot about the canon storyline that we can both definitely imagine Sorscha as the Little Match Girl...**

 **rowaelinfeyrhys: Thank you! I'm glad you liked it. And Sorscha is without a doubt very, very selfless - it's one of the things I love about her. Here's Lysandra's chapter for you! :)**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thank you so much! I'm sorry about how sad it was - the idea just came to me, and I had to write it! Thanks so much for your review!**

 **This one is Lysandra's chapter, and she's been put in the story of Puss in Boots. Sorry if she seems kind of OOC - despite how badass she is already, I found it difficult to put her in the role of the supremely badass Puss without altering her character a bit.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own TOG.**

* * *

 _Human Acquaintances_

Miss Cortland was a courtesan of few wares - she didn't even have a brothel she belonged to, she drifted from place to place, looking after her infant son as she did. She continued like this for eighteen years, until she died quickly and suddenly one day from a fever no one had either anticipated nor prepared for, leaving everything of hers - which was nearly nothing - to her son, Sam.

In short, Sam Cortland lost his mother, and gained a cat for his troubles.

He knew this cat well - Lysandra was a hissing, spitting tabby cat who'd once confided to him, when he was very young and still thought normal cats were able to talk, that it was her dream to one day become a snow leopard. Of course, being young, he'd had no idea quite how serious that particular ambition was - or that it would ever become possible.

Shortly after the pitiful funeral he'd been able to afford for her, Sam, being in a foul, pessimistic mood, was bemoaning life at large to himself when he made the mistake of saying, "And now all I have is a talking cat. Much use she is."

He'd been met with a distinct, peculiarly human-sounding cough. Lysandra had leapt up next to him, and dragged one of her claws down his sleeve. He yelped as the fabric ripped.

"I assure you, Sam," the cat drawled, her green eyes fixing him with a stare. It was odd, he noticed: she had circular pupils, like a human, rather than feline slits. "I'm not just a talking cat. I wasn't even born a cat. I'm a shapeshifting human."

He'd barely had the time to process this admission before she was continuing on: "Nor do you _have_ me; I chose to stay with your mother, because she was kind, and I'm choosing to stay with you, because you are kind. I hope you're not bothered by the extra mouth to feed; it's part of the reason I stay in this body, the smaller portions I need to eat in order to survive. I'll make sure I more than make up for the burden with my usefulness."

He swallowed, and he wanted to be polite, but he tentatively asked, "And, how might you be useful?"

Those emerald eyes were glinting wickedly. "Go and catch a pheasant for me, and I'll show you."

* * *

Lysandra remembered Arobynn well. He'd been the bane of her existence since she'd met the bastard, and _especially_ since she'd unintentionally divulged that she was a shapeshifter. This endeavour would be the easiest by far.

And not just because she didn't have to worry about Sam making any well-intentioned blunders born of ignorance. Not that he'd made any so far, but with the stingy amount of information she'd given him, and the gargantuan amount of trust she'd required he put in her, a decent person's tendency toward the foolish would undoubtably occur.

Gods, she sounded like Celaena. "Don't trust anyone with any secret you can't keep yourself" and all that. That girl was a wildfire.

But Sam was in love with her, and the golden-hairy, fiery, stuck up princess loved him back. So despite their mutual distaste for each other, Lysandra would help the woman - and Sam - be with the person she loved.

Being a cat had its advantages sometimes. She'd been able to sneak around the market of the shit-hole of a city her human acquaintances called home, and she'd been privy to things most humans would never guess at the existence was.

Namely, in this instance, the passionate romance between a courtesan's only son and a king's only daughter.

And because of the power she'd seen behind that love, Lysandra was now playing Match Maker Supreme in her attempts to get Sam to attempt to woo the king into giving his blessing for their marriage. Then, lo and behold, little Sam could become King Sam (or Prince Consort, but whatever) in the future, and she'll never have to hide behind a cat's body again.

Until that attractive future came about, though, she had to put up with Arobynn's bullshit again. At least she'd get the chance to kill him.

His castle loomed on the horizon (seriously though; who thought it was a good idea to make _him_ a lord?) by the time she slowed her run. A part of her wanted to turn around at the sight of it, bad memories rising to mind, but it had been weeks since Miss Cortland had died. Sam had sent - on her instruction - at least a dozen pheasants to the king as presents by now. It was more than time for Arobynn's role in the plan to begin.

At the bottom of the obsidian steps (he undoubtably commissioned them himself; he must have loved looking all foreboding and dramatic) she shifted back into a human form she hadn't used in years. Medium height, willowy, tanned skin with uptilted emerald eyes, smooth, tumbling chestnut curls, and a face that belonged on the statue of an angel.

It wasn't her real face - that was lost to time and memory. But it was hers.

Fixing a sharp smile to her face, she rapped on the door three times.

As she'd expected, it wasn't Arobynn himself who answered. He preferred to show his power and decadence through making other people do his work for him, so an unsmiling butler led her through to the opulent living room instead of the man she was looking for,

But he arrived soon enough, his silver eyes bright as two coins as he saw her there. "Hello, Lysandra darling," he purred, and she felt her hackles rise up instinctively. She willed them down.

"Arobynn," she greeted politely. And so began their verbal sparring.

She didn't deign to remember any of it, later, save the turn of conversation that prodded at the limits of both their powers. "I don't suppose you've discovered any particularly new forms in recent years?" the lord drawled. He had been the one to train her as a shapeshifter, and she'd made him more than a pretty penny in the years before she'd bought her freedom from him.

"Unfortunately, no," she replied - exactly what he wanted to hear. "I've grown rather attached to a more feline body." She shifted into a tabby there and then - before he could blink, she was human again. A slow smile spread across his lips.

"Well done," he praised warmly. Once upon a time, she would have slaughtered and butchered for that praise. Now it grated on her, like a sense of foreboding.

"Have you explored any further?" she asked, her tone polite enough to convey that no, she did not care, and this was not an invitation to indulge her. But of course, he took it as such.

Instead of answering in words, Arobynn disappeared in a flash; in his place, a massive lion sat. Its neck was easily too thick for her cat form to curl around it.

"That's all very well and good," she dead-panned, "but you're a thief. An assassin. A criminal. You deal in shadows, in a combination of flashy and subtle. Where's your subtle?" she asked. His eyebrows were raised. "What forms could you take that would allow you to sneak into a house undetected, to kill a person without suspicion arising over why a lion was so far from its native territory." She sat back in an illusion of smugness, of one who'd asked of her master what he couldn't give. "It seems that you're useless in that aspect."

His eyes were bright with the challenge. "I always had you to do it for me, beautiful one," he reminded her. "But I've learned to make up for what I've lost, make no doubt." And without further taunt being necessary, he'd shifted into a small tabby cat of his own.

She pounced.

As she moved, she shifted. Fingernails became long, gleaming claws; gold skin became white fur; bared teeth became fangs. Until a fully grown female snow leopard had caught the small beast that was Arobynn between its paws, and crushed him to death.

Lysandra walked out of the room five minutes later, the corpse of a nondescript cat swinging from her hands.

"This castle is mine now," she announced to the shocked staff. "As Arobynn's former - and only - heir, this all belongs to me." Her eyes twinkled as she looked around the place, and the ghost of vicious laughter haunted her face. "And I hereby give it to Sam Cortland, the new Lord of the Guild."

* * *

The royal convoy was approaching, Sam was pacing the length of his new quarters dressed in the most fine clothes he'd ever seen, and Lysandra was in her human form once more, lazing on one of the armchairs in front of the fireplace in an oddly cat-like manner.

"They're actually coming," he muttered as he looked out of the window and into the courtyard below. "Gods, they're _here_. Celaena-" he cut himself off. "You actually did it, Lysandra."

She didn't turn around. "Me? It was you who got the king's attention by sending all those gifts. I simply gave you this castle. And it'll be the princess who gets her father to marry the two of you eventually - pushy, that one is." Her delicate features contorted in a sneer.

"What, exactly, is your problem with her?"

"Oh, nothing," she replied airily. "It's that infernal dog of hers I get pissed at - she has the audacity to _chase_ me. 'Fleetfoot' indeed. And then the princess shouts at _me_ to get out of the garden. Oh," she looked up. "Here she comes."

Celaena burst into the room, and had eyes for no one but Sam as she went barrelling forwards and threw her arms around him. Sam was smiling the most that Lysandra had seen him do since his mother's death, and she quietly slipped out of the room.

She may not like the princess, but Sam deserved to be happy. As his mother had before him. And Lysandra didn't just hang around a family for years without good reason to.

Nor did she leave her debts unsettled.

Arobynn was dead. Sam was happy. Celaena might be less of a bitch from now on (who really knew with her?).

All was right with the world.


	7. Ansel - Snow White

**Thanks to SilverWhirlwind33, TomThomas101, rowaelinfeyrhys, and wavingthroughawindow for reviewing!**

 **SilverWhirlwind33: I suppose I could write Nehemia as Jasmine, but the main problem I have with that storyline is that Nehemia has no love interest, so I wouldn't know who to write as Aladdin.**

 **TomThomas101: Lysandra doesn't really resemble Puss In Boots, no, but from what I remember when I got the idea I just ran with it because I couldn't think of any other fairy tale she fit. In some chapters I can't think of one that the character could be inserted into, so I just wrote them into one that came to mind.**

 **rowaelinfeyrhys: Thanks for reviewing! If you haven't read it, I would recommend it - it's a very interesting story. And I really like the character Puss in the story, so I gave Lysandra some of his characteristics. I might write a Nesryn one - I have one planned - but I think I might wait until Tower of Dawn comes out so we have a better grasp on her character.**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thank you! I'd go into the world's in more detail, but I only need to tell the story in them :) Hope you like this chapter!**

 **This one is about Ansel, and is (loosely) based around Snow White.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own TOG. None of theses characters are mine. Nor are the fairy tales.**

* * *

 _Sitting Ducks_

The home of the Silent Assassins was welcoming, but it was not hers.

Ansel had lost her home - Briarcliff, Briarcliff, _Briarcliff_ \- after Lord Loch had stormed the castle and done away with her father and older sister. Lord Loch was one greatly beloved by his people - but so had been Ansel's family. He'd felt threatened by their quiet success, and decided to see how well-loved he could be.

And so began the endless propaganda reels that had led Ansel - who'd escaped the slaughter - not only running from the manor, but from the Flatlands themselves.

Admittedly, she didn't know _why_ Lord Loch was so committed to his image in the public eye - for all she knew, it could be anything from a need to be loved and a lack of that in his private life to a simple political tactic of staying in power - but the subsequent slandering of her and her family's reputation amongst even the most loyal in her father's regime had led to her become an almost hated figure in the Western Wastes.

 _Almost_ being the key word there.

Because despite the fact that the scorn and lies had driven her from the only home she'd ever known, despite the fact that she was gone and setting up a new life with the Silent Assassins far to the south, despite the fact that those who still supported her bid as ruler were revolutionaries, dissolutes, few and far between. . . Loch still considered her a threat.

He had his propaganda minister and his spymaster team up to gage the allegiances of every day citizens. And nearly every time, he got the answer he wanted: they loved him the most.

On and on, that was always the answer. Until there was a minor insurgence from those who wished for the old rulers back, and Loch cracked down on it hard. Troops swarmed the streets of towns, travellers were monitored, and those who were known sympathisers with the insurgents were arrested without charge or warrant. Loch's regime began approaching that of a military dictatorship.

The public opinion of him changed with it.

He reportedly killed the spymaster when he brought him the news that sympathy for her was spreading like wildfire.

Ansel herself only found this out later, however, so her guard was down (or, as far down as she ever let it be) when the first assassination attempt came.

In hindsight, perhaps it had been a mistake to commission the armour. Such opulence was hardly inconspicuous, and throwing that sort of money around was sure to garner attention. But the blacksmith had seemed skilled enough, and she had nothing for herself from home save her father's sword, so having a suit of armour to honour her family's memory was excusable, wasn't it?

The blacksmith did his work well, certainly. But it later became clear that he'd been in the pay of Lord Loch, or someone working for him, because when he helped her into it, showing her how to buckle the belt and the breastplate, it was obvious that it was much too tight. Ansel tried to draw breath to tell him so, but black spots appeared in front of her eyes and her head was spinning like a top and she couldn't breathe and the floor was coming up to meet her and _she couldn't breathe_ -

She later woke up in her room in the keep of the Silent Assassins, with Celaena - the sharp-eyed woman visiting from Terrasen - sitting in the bunk across from her. "Mikhail was passing by when he saw the blacksmith draw his knife," she said by way of greeting. "You were on the floor unconscious." There was a moment of silence before her friend continued, "I don't know what sort of enemies you've made, Ansel, but no matter how flamboyant that armour of yours is, I think you'll need it soon."

"No one's going to try to assassinate me," Ansel said, her voice uncharacteristically small. Celaena had looked shocked for a moment, before raising her eyebrows. "I'm no one."

Celaena stood, and walked to the door. "Tell that to the blacksmith who was just paid to slit your throat."

The second time someone tried to kill her, it was a traitor amongst the Silent Assassins themselves.

It wasn't even her comb that was poisoned. Presumably the traitor had been paid to sneak into their room whilst they were running and spread the fatal liquid on the hairbrush's spines. This would have, in theory, led to the poison penetrating her bloodstream via her scalp, and eventually stopping her heart.

But the traitor had mistaken Celaena's golden, bejewelled comb for Ansel's utilitarian one, and Adarlan's Assassins was a thousand times more paranoid and alert than her friend. She'd noticed the liquid her comb was slathered in and quickly refused to use it, insisting it was too thick to be water and too clear to be blood. Once she'd run a few, sketchy-looking tests on the liquid, she'd concluded that it was, in fact, poison.

Celaena had simply accepted that this attack was meant for her. (Her readiness to accept an attempt on her own life worried Ansel, if the wine-haired girl was being perfectly honest). She never considered that it might be a further extension of the job the blacksmith had previously failed at.

But Ansel had no doubts.

The next (and last) assassination was the final straw for her.

The food of the Keep she was accustomed to being well-cooked and fine, a salute to the chef's culinary expertise. Even the uncooked fruit was always the ripest, the freshest it could be, despite the Keep's position in the middle of the Red Desert. So when she took a bite out of an apple, and the rancid taste of a bruise invaded her mouth, she promptly spat the chunk of fruit out again.

"That is _it_ ," she fumed later. Celaena had watched as she chucked her stuff into a small bag and prepared to go home for the first time in years. It might have been the heat of the moment, but she thought that her friend looked vaguely envious of her, for whatever reason. "I am going home, and I am doing something about this. I can't stand by any longer."

"I admire you for that," Celaena said. "Good luck."

Ansel nodded at her, and marched out of the room. She didn't know how she could do this, or how she had a hope of getting back her lorddom, but she had to try.

She would not let herself and her friends wait around like so many sitting ducks any longer.

This was the beginning of her revolution.


	8. Manon - Little Red Riding Hood

**Thanks to rowaelinfeyrhys, franklyherondale, and wavingthroughawindow for reviewing!**

 **rowaelinfeyrhys: Thank you! We haven't seen much of Ansel in the books, so I'm glad you think I got a good grasp on her character!**

 **franklyherondale: Thank you so much! And don't worry, it did make sense to me :) I can barely remember how I got it into my head that Ansel might fit Snow White, but after some aggressive tweaking of both the canon storyline and the fairy tale, I'm glad you liked the outcome.**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thank you! I'm so glad you liked it. I think the main thing that linked Ansel to Snow White in my mind was the idea that she ran away from her home to seek refuge with strangers, but I have no idea how I got to the point in the planning. I hope you like this chapter!**

 **This chapter is about Manon being put into Little Red Riding Hood, and it's one of the ones I've had in my head since the beginning. I hope you like it!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own the Throne of Glass series.**

* * *

 _The Worst Wolves_

Manon was used to the walk through the woods to her grandmother's little cottage.

It was dark and it was quiet and it was (according to her little sister Rhiannon) very, very scary, but she was used to it.

"But vagabonds and ruffians and wolves!" Rhiannon, all of eight years old and already developing a healthy sense of self-preservation, would cry.

Manon would smile her "scary" smile, as it was dubbed by the child, sharp as a razor, and bend down so her eye level was equal with the girl's. Hard, metallic irises would stare into warm brown ones - like the earth, like Rhiannon's mother's, like their father's - and Manon would let her crimson cape - like blood, like love - shift to reveal the flash of steel that was the dagger at her waist.

"The worst wolves are people, Rhiannon," she would croon. She was the only one who called her half sister by her full name - she was "Rhi" to everyone else, even to Manon's girlfriend Elide. "And I think I'll be fine."

Their father worried about Manon. He worried about Rhiannon. He worried about everything.

He didn't like what Manon said to Rhiannon, and how she refused to coddle her little sister into "an ineffectual, dependant, sheltered softie." He would object that she was only eight - but at age eight Manon's mother had been having her run training exercises on how to hack, slash and decapitate an attacker with a few strokes. Lothian Blackbeak had held no discrepancies about how women were perceived in their world, and sought to teach her how to protect herself from such atrocities.

Manon's paternal grandmother had never approved of Lothian as her son's first wife, but Manon had always secretly suspected that was because the two women were more similar than the elder would have liked to admit. After all, her grandmother _did_ live in the middle of a wolf-infested wood - too dangerous for protected Rhiannon to traverse, certainly - and seemed no worse for wear whenever Manon visited her.

Her father was even sceptical of _Manon_ travelling the woods, but her grandmother had put a stop to his coddling in a rare show of fondness for her eldest granddaughter, insisting, "Are you unable to see that Manon can take care of herself better than you can?"

Her grandmother was a wonderful person. An enigma, yes, but wonderful nevertheless.

Manon encountered no one on the path, and she was a little disappointed; she'd made good money selling that wolf pelt last time.

Some people thought her a little bloodthirsty - there were whispers amongst most of the teenagers back at the village that her cloak was only red because it'd interacted with so much blood that it was impossible to get clean; a story that both amused Manon and irritated her with its outlandishness - but she had no idea what they were talking about.

She caught a glimpse of her grandmother's cottage up ahead and picked up her pace. Judging by the position of the sun, she'd lagged behind a bit today, and whilst she was on vaguely good terms with her grandmother - the woman couldn't really afford to alienate the only family member who bothered to visit her regularly, after all - she was really not in the mood for a good-natured scolding about _tardiness_ and _punctuality_.

After she'd crossed the bridge spanning the small ditch that encircled the cottage - "a moat, a moat, like around a castle in a fairy tale!" Rhiannon had cried three years ago, when she last came here - she didn't bother knocking; she twisted the handle and stormed right in. She always did.

Which is why Manon should have taken the jerk of shock from the cottage's inhabitant when she did as her first warning.

Her second should have been the fact that her grandmother was lying in bed. After all, being such a stickler for manners, Manon's grandmother was hardly one to let a guest, even a well acquainted one, bustle about her house like they belonged there. She would not be confined to bed unless there was something severely wrong.

Manon was here just yesterday. Nothing had been wrong then.

"Grandmother?" She approached the bedroom, and opened the door to see the shape of her grandmother's body curled up under the covers. Only. . .

Her hair was longer. It fell around the pillow, rather than in its signature bun, and it was more black than grey, when Manon was fairly sure that in her youth her grandmother had sported the brown locks of her father and sister.

Her hands were thinner. She remembered her grandmother in all appearances being a frail woman, despite how misleading that appearance was. She lacked the muscle and strength evident on the body of whoever was in front of her.

Her body was taller. Her grandmother had always had her son's height; Manon towered over her.

"Where is my grandmother?" she snapped, that famed steel and strength lacing her voice with threats.

The woman lying in the bed turned to look at her. The face buried under all that dark hair, set with equally dark, gold-flecked eyes, reminded Manon of something, though she couldn't for the life of her have said what.

"Oh, but I'm right here, Manon Blackbeak," the woman hissed.

Manon backed up, placing her basket of bread on the floor, and shifting her hand to the knife at her waist. "Who are you?" she hissed back. "And my name is Manon-"

"Blackbeak," the woman finished. "You are the daughter of my daughter, Lothian Blackbeak, and _that makes you a Blackbeak_. You will not bear the name of those insipid Crochans, nor share it with your _half-sister_." She sneered the word.

" _Who are you?_ "

"Haven't you worked it out? How disappointing," the woman spat. "I _am_ your grandmother - your mother's mother. Not the _nanny_ who lives in this pathetic excuse for a house. And you are coming with me."

"No," Manon said evenly, her voice deadly soft. "I'm not."

"You are a _Blackbeak_ ," her grandmother countered. "You are _better_ than this insignificant village, _greater_ than it. You are _stronger_ than every idiot who chooses to reside here, and I will not have you bogged down by that girlfriend or yours, nor your _stupid little sister_!"

Everything slowed.

She did not just insult Elide and Rhiannon - the two people Manon cared about most in the world. _She did not._

"You are coming with me."

Like hell she was.

 _The worst wolves are people, Rhiannon_ , Manon thought.

She drew her dagger.


	9. Asterin - Sleeping Beauty

**Thanks to Fire Breathing Queen, wavingthroughawindow, rowaelinfeyrhys, and franklyherondale for reviewing!**

 **Fire Breathing Queen: Thank you! I won't be doing one for Maeve, I'm afraid, since the next one will be the last one, but thanks for the suggestion all the same!**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thank you! I'm glad you liked it - I love Manon as well, especially that balance she has between humanity and brutality. And I'm glad you like the Malide reference; I would ship them too, if it weren't for Elorcan! I hope you like this Asterin one! :)**

 **rowaelinfeyrhys: Thank you so much! I agree, Red Riding Hood's naivety was the main problem I had with writing it, but I'm glad you think it was successful!**

 **franklyherondale: THANK YOU! Your review made me smile so much!**

 **This chapter is focused on Asterin, and is a loose retelling of Sleeping Beauty, but is also canon compliant. The next chapter will be the last one, and it'll be a Nesryn one, but I won't write it until I've finished reading Tower of Dawn (which I get my copy of tomorrow!) so I have a better grasp on her character. And since TOD is 600 odd pages... It might be a while, sorry.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own TOG.**

* * *

 _True Love_

Asterin was there and yet not there, trapped in eternal sleep yet perfectly wide awake and able to move around. Not in her own body, albeit, but she could move.

She knew she wasn't in her own body because that was her body, right there below her, and she was fairly certain it was impossible to see one's own face without looking in a mirror.

After a moment of looking, she knew there was something undeniably wrong.

Her face was pale and gaunt. Asterin was by no means a vain person, but she knew she was attractive, and she knew she didn't look it at this moment in time. Her usually vibrant gold hair was lank and limp, and she could see the bones of her naked body hammering against the skin.

Blood stained the white covers, a pitiful attempt at preserving her modesty, and Asterin's gaze dropped lower, to where a part of her knew there had been a baby bump just hours (days? weeks?) before.

That was what did it. She could remember nothing else that had happened, but she knew this: There had been a lover, a human hunter, a pregnancy, and an induced labour. After that she remembered nothing.

Her child! What had happened to her child!?

The door swung open behind her, and Asterin spun round (or rather, she didn't, because she was still lying right there in bed, hovering something between death and life and waiting for the darkness to embrace so. . . her viewpoint changed?) to see Vesta and Sorrel march in. There were no fainthearted gasps at the sight of the body, no tears - just that hard, cold anger that had been bred into them all at birth.

"Who did this?" Vesta hissed, that protective loyalty Asterin had loved (yes, _loved_ , because she knew this was love) springing to the surface.

Sorrel's face was peculiarly blank as she said, "The Matron."

Vesta's curse seemed much louder than it was; the intense silence in Asterin's head made for a large contrast.

" _I'll kill her,_ " the fiery-haired witch spat. "I'll _kill_ her." A heartbeat passed, then, "What happened?"

"Asterin's daughter was stillborn," Sorrel said, her voice still curiously neutral. "The Matron was sent into a rage, the witchling was disposed of, and Asterin was punished."

" _Punished?_ "

Sorrel didn't bother answering; she simply reached out a hand, and ripped back the sheet. Vesta's gasp disappeared before it was formed, replaced with only a grim certainty.

The word _UNCLEAN_ was branded across Asterin's stomach in red, raw letters. A flash of memory sparked in Asterin's mind - the sensation of burning, the glint of the Matron's iron teeth bared in a sadistic grin, sparks flying from a glowing red poker. Vesta's breath hissed out between her teeth.

"Manon let this happen?"

"Manon is away," Sorrel said, her voice hard. Asterin knew she hated the Matron as much as she did, but a word against Manon, and Sorrel - _and Asterin_ \- would gut you. "She had no idea Asterin was even pregnant."

"Will she do anything?"

"What can she do?" Sorrel's face was still that hideous apathy, and then it hit Asterin why: if she were to show what she was really feeling, it would lead to her marching down the stairs of the Keep and killing the Matron herself. And that was not a fight she could win. "Discipline, obedience, brutality, right? Manon's the paragon of them all. It won't change what's happened, anyway."

And that anger. . . That wasn't the possessive kind, that the Matron exhibited, nor was it born out of wounded pride. It wasn't the glee at an excuse to strike back - _you killed one of ours so now we'll kill you_ \- it was the anger born of devastation, the anger born of _how dare you hurt someone I love_.

You know, that word became less scary when you said it over and over and over. Love.

Love.

 _Love_.

Vesta and Sorrel loved her. Asterin loved them back. Manon - Manon loved her too, she must, because otherwise they wouldn't even be discussing the possibility of her confronting her grandmother about it, of holding a mutiny.

Asterin was sure of it.

And in the end, it was that love that led to her friends carrying her still unconscious body out of the Keep before the Matron could kick her out. It was that love that led to them holing themselves up in a cabin in the woods with her - nowhere near the one her hunter occupied, which was probably a good thing; after the loss of their child, she didn't think she could face him.

Love was how they kept forcing water and food down her throat even as she remained unconscious. Love was how they never gave up hope that she would wake, and even fended off the questions of the rest of the Thirteen in order to care for her.

Love was how one day, Manon strode in the door. "Where's Asterin?" she barked, and was shown through to the small bedroom the body had been allocated.

Asterin watched as her cousin snapped, "Wake up, Asterin," to the unresponsive witch, and the concern that flashed across her face when her Second didn't wake. Manon use her two main fingers to check the pulse in Asterin's wrist, then tapped her forehead impatiently.

"Come on, Asterin," she muttered irritably. "I know you're alive. Wake up!"

And amidst the mess of harsh orders, irritation and the love that not even Manon could deny existed, Asterin did.


	10. Nesryn - East of the Sun

**Hello! I know it's been ages, but it took me a while to get into the first part of TOD. As it is, I absolutely loved Nesryn's story arc in the second half (I think she might be one of my new favourite ever characters, right up there with Elide and Inej) and I loved her relationship with Sartaq. That being said, this chapter CONTAINS TOWER OF DAWN SPOILERS. DON'T READ IF YOU HAVEN'T READ TOWER OF DAWN YET.**

 **Thanks to wavingthroughawindow and rowaelinfeyrhys for reviewing!**

 **wavingthroughawindow: Thank you! I'm so glad you liked it. And I didn't really want to bring in Asterin's canon love interest, as we know virtually nothing about him, so I looked for love in other places! And I agree about how underappreciated Asterin is - she's been through so much, and is still such a good person. I probably won't do an Yrene one, even after reading TOD and seeing how her storyline develops, because I'm just not as fond of her as I am the other characters, nor do I ship her with her love interest that much, nor do I have any ideas for what fairy tale she might fit into :/**

 **rowaelinfeyrhys: I'm so glad you liked it! And I can't believe it's the last either - it wasn't long ago that I was just beginning this series! I hope you like Tower of Dawn when you do read it - I found the first half to drag a bit, but I really liked everything about Nesryn's storyline, and things definitely picked up in the second half. Thanks for reviewing!**

 **As I said earlier: SPOILERS. This is set during Tower of Dawn, sometime in the weeks Nesryn was with the rukhin, and is loosely based on their actual meeting with the _kharankui_ and the Norwegian fairy tale East of the Sun, West of the Moon. The entire chapter title was too long, so it's just called East of the Sun in the chapter headings. This will be the last oneshot in this series, so I hope you've enjoyed reading them!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Throne of Glass - it belongs to Sarah J Maas.**

* * *

 _Wind-Seeker_

Nesryn hadn't been among the rukhin for long, but she knew that something was wrong the moment she woke up late and Sartaq wasn't already in the aerie seeing to Kadara.

She flagged down Borte the first chance she got, and asked her where her hearth-brother was. Borte shrugged. "I don't know," she said in a carefree tone, though her biting at her bottom lip betrayed her nervousness. "He left during the night, and no one's seen him since. I think he conversed with Houlun before he left - you should ask her." _Because she certainly won't listen to my questions_ , was what her irritated expression said.

So Nesryn did. And Borte's hearth-mother seemed unnaturally unsettled as well - she'd always struck Nesryn as someone unflinching and resolute. "He went out on Kadara with Falkan in his pocket to scout out the peaks of Dagul and spot some of the _kharankui._ He insisted he'd be back soon, but a storm is coming." At Nesryn's face, she'd continued, "I'm a Story Keeper; we know these things. Storms are our domain. And you know as well as I that a storm has been here for weeks now."

"I don't know what you're telling me to do."

"Captain Faliq." The heart-mother's voice was steel now. "Take the riderless ruk, Salkhi, and find Sartaq. I imagine that if anyone can reach him, it'll be Neith's Arrow." Her dark eyes glinted, and she reached down into a satchel at her side, drawing out what looked like a golden apple. But surely those couldn't grow in the harsh climate of the mountains?

"Oh, and take this," Houlun added as an afterthought, rolling it about in her palm. She pressed it into Nesryn's hand. The captain was surprised by how cold it was, like it leeched the warmth from her skin. "Who knows when you might need it. The _kharankui_ are not to be trifled with."

So Nesryn took the apple, and Salkhi, and took off.

She'd never flown alone before, nor on Salkhi's back, but she managed as best she could until she ran into a patrol from another of the clans. They didn't know where Sartaq was either, but they'd been heeding the Prince's recent warnings about the newly stirred _kharankui_ and gathered some of the Fae blades remaining in the watchtowers. A man flying in that other clan took pity on her, and handed her the smallest dagger they had.

"For luck," he said. _Because you'll need it_.

The third person she met was Yeran, leading a group of the Berlad on a similar patrol. His brows had creased in worry beneath that usually blasé façade he wore, and he'd ended up forking over one of his spears that he carried. "You might find a use for it," he said. "Besides, I don't want my betrothed to kill me for not helping you in whatever way I could."

She'd sighed, and thanked him, and hoped that she might actually be able to find Sartaq next time.

The last person she met before she reached the heart of the _kharankui's_ presence in Dagul Fells was Falkan. He quickly summarised the situation: he and Sartaq had been scouting around when the _kharankui_ had struck, and captured the prince. Falkan had shifted into a moth small enough to fly between the strands of the web, and had barely escaped.

"I'll take you to where we were ambushed," he said. "Maybe you can get him out."

But when they got there, it was dark and a storm was picking up. Rain lashed the tendrils of spidersilk hanging over the trees, creating shadows out of nothing but her fear and nightmares. She clutched the Fae dagger tightly and prayed to find Sartaq soon.

"Are you afraid?" Falkan asked.

Nesryn straightened her spine. She was a legend - Neith's Arrow. She would not be cowed. "No," she said defiantly, jutting her chin out and hoping the world heard it.

They set off.

It wasn't long before the _kharankui_ caught them. They dragged her back to their den with hungry pincers, Falkan a dormouse in her pocket.

When she awoke again in their presence, she found herself still fully armed with the spear and dagger she'd been given, the _kharankui_ apparently loathe to touch their enemies' weapons. She spoke to the nearest one. "I will snap this spear you seem to hate so much in two if you let me see Sartaq for a night."

The spider agreed, and she followed through on her promise, breaking the wooden shaft over her knee. As she was escorted to Sartaq's separate holding cell, no one noticed a pale silver butterfly flutter out of her coat pocket - the _kharankui_ were far too focused on gloating for that.

When she spoke to Sartaq, though, he was fast asleep, and refused to wake. Only the howl of the storm in the branches and threads answered her pleas.

 _Wind-seeker_ , it said. _Wind-seeker._

Soon enough she was escorted back to her own cell.

The next day, mystified as to why she hadn't been eaten yet, Nesryn promised to do the same to the Fae blade for the same price. When her captors agreed, she used the dirt of the floor to grind the blade's edge into dullness, and when she tossed it aside, it didn't so much as shear through the spidersilk walls of the tent.

She tried to speak to Sartaq again, but he was still asleep, her visit coming at too late an hour.

The next day, it was still light outside when she tossed the golden apple at her _kharankui_ captors. They shied away from it instantly, but seemed morbidly fascinated, and jabbed it with their monstrous legs, squished it between their pincers. It was one of the prized healing ingredients of the Fae, she heard them murmur, and the Fae were their greatest adversaries.

This time, she snuck out rather than wait for them to escort her at the predetermined time. And this time Sartaq was still awake.

With all her weapons surrendered to the _kharankui_ or destroyed, there was nothing they could do but wait in his cell for help to come.

And it did - after the minor explosive Houlun had rigged into the apple was triggered by the _kharankui_ and they were blown to oblivion, Kadara and Falkan turned up to lift the two humans from amidst the rubble.


End file.
